


Heedless of the Wind and Weather (We're Always Together, So Let Come What May)

by radondoran



Category: The Three Caballeros (1944)
Genre: Bilingual Character(s), Christmas Fluff, Community: disney_kink, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 05:33:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12928554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radondoran/pseuds/radondoran
Summary: Three caballeros, three Christmases:  variations on a theme.





	Heedless of the Wind and Weather (We're Always Together, So Let Come What May)

**Author's Note:**

> For [a disney-kink prompt](https://disney-kink.livejournal.com/361.html?thread=1749609#t1749609) asking for Donald/José/Panchito fluffy Christmas fic.

**West Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States - Christmas**

It's still dark—or, you know, what they _call_ dark here in the suburbs of this City of Angels—when Panchito wakes to the sound of singing.

—Or, you know, what you might, generously, _call_ singing.

" _Deck the halls with boughs of holly! Wak-wak-wak-wak-wak, wak-wak-wak-wak!_ " The lights are on and Donald strides back into the bedroom like he's been up for hours—even if he is still wearing pajamas. "Hey guys, wake up! It's Christmas!"

Panchito has always prided himself on being an early riser, but all the same perhaps it is for the best if this morning the change in longitude works to his advantage. And José, here!—as much as they both love Donald, somehow Panchito suspects he wouldn't look nearly so amused by this peculiar brand of alarm clock if it weren't already lunchtime in Rio.

"Come on, come on!" Donald takes their hands and practically drags them both out of bed; when José reaches for shirt and tie and jacket Donald only tugs harder towards the door. "It's Christmas!" he says, this time as though that were a perfectly obvious explanation, applicable to any and all strange phenomena that might occur. "What you've got on is fine! Oh! Except—!"

He drops their hands and rushes out. There's hardly time for Panchito and José to exchange a questioning glance before he's back again, bearing three oversized red stocking-caps trimmed with white: St. Nicholas's hat like in the Coke advertisements.

Having donned his, Donald goes to hand over the other two—then pauses, and, catching Panchito's eye, breaks anew into a smile.

"'Here, _amigos_!'" And he tosses the Santa Claus hats.

The conifer in the living room is decked with so many electric lights it sparkles more brilliantly than the city skyline—sparkles almost as bright as Donald's mood.

A lot of people would be self-conscious, having company ("You guys aren't _company_!" Donald insisted the other day, and maybe this is what he meant); it would be easy to find oneself... constrained, to fall into exaggerated attentiveness, a lot of oh-no-after-you and oh-gosh-you-shouldn't-have, a lot of insistence on putting guests first while affecting unconcern for one's own gifts.

Donald, though—he's not ungracious, he's never forgetful of their presence—but, well, neither is he forgetful of their presents! Donald likes presents, both the giving and the getting. He likes wrestling with the paper and ribbon ("I could bring you a knife—" "What fun would _that_ be?"), trying on sweaters and trying out gadgets, breakfasting on oranges and chocolate candy—Donald simply _likes_ everything so well that Panchito likes simply being around him.

"Well," Donald remarks at last, as they sit on the living room floor half-buried in the torn-up remains of the colorful wrapping paper, "that's Christmas morning for ya. What do you think?"

He blushes under the barrage of effusive praise that question generates—wonderful! lovely! everything's perfect!—and it's the first time all day he's shown the least bit of self-consciousness.

"Aww, thanks..." Trying to deflect the compliments, he adds, "I just wish L.A. weather wasn't so lousy."

Panchito glances at the window. A light rain is falling, yes; and the midmorning sky is an unfriendly gray; but it isn't all that bad—he hadn't even thought to notice the weather until now.

José asks, "Why, are we going somewhere?"

"Oh, gee, no! It's way nicer to spend the day at home, like I said. It just doesn't fit the mood, that's all! Somehow it never quite feels like Christmas without snow."

A little ball of crumpled paper bounces off Donald's forehead, right between the eyes. He turns to find Panchito already preparing the next shot, with a challenge in his eyes that is only half in jest.

"I think your friends to the south would have to disagree with you there! _¿No, José?_ "

José laughs. " _Sim_ , some of us manage it perfectly well having Christmas in the middle of summer!"

"All right, sorry. But ya gotta admit it's.... I mean there's somethin' kinda... well it's like in that Crosby/Astaire picture! ' _Iiiiii'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ooooones I used to knooow_....' It's, you know, sentimental-like! I mean it's in all the songs—' _Dashing through the snow, in a one-horse open sleigh...._ ' Or, or, ' _Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose...._ '"

"Open fire, hey?" Now there's a tradition Panchito can get behind. "That sounds fun, let's do that!"

Donald looks sincerely apologetic. "I haven't got any chestnuts."

"You haven't got a fireplace, either," José points out.

"Oh, yeah."

* * *

**Praia Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, Distrito Federal, Brasil - Natal**

They say Christmas is the hottest day of the year in Rio.

O.K., so that's no news to Joe! But Donald can't get past his amazement and delight. He just never thought about it, last time he was in South America. And he's still not sure he really gets all that stuff about orbits and latitude and the axis (not _that_ Axis!)—but that doesn't mean he loves this any less. Everything seems wonderful today: the festive sparkle of the sunlight on the sea; the soft, merry crunch of the sand beneath his feet; the crisp cacophony of Christmas-bells through already languidly warm morning air.

It's funny, there's even something kinda thrilling about just lying here on the beach—though you wouldn't know it to look at him.

He's borrowed a spare straw boater for the occasion—Joe insisted, his own cap's not so great against the sunshine—and, taking the cue from Panchito, he's got it tipped down to shade his face. At the sound of footsteps he opens an eye just long enough to make out a shadow against the lattice of yellow sunlight, set off by a sliver of iridescent green.

"Well! Look at the two of you, sleeping the day away!"

Without stirring Donald replies, "Isn't that your favorite hobby?"

"Yes," says Joe matter-of-factly. "But come, it's time to get up! _Tenho sorvete_ ," he adds, singsong.

Donald sits up at once. Sure, Spanish and Portuguese alike might as well be Greek to him, but he's managed to pick up a few words here and there, words for important stuff like—

"Ice cream!" Donald accepts one of the cones and digs in. "Oh boy, that really hits the spot! Guess that's why the line was so long, huh?"

"Line?" Joe repeats. "Ah! No, no. Forgive the delay, I was caught up in chatting with the ice cream man. Like they say, _não há pressa no Brasil_."

Panchito, having emerged from under his hat, pushes it up by one side so the crooked brim magnifies his skeptical expression. " _¿No hay presa...?_ " Then he laughs. "Oh, _¡prisa!_ Of course, no hurry. And they say that, do they? Hm! Are you sure that wouldn't just be—uh— _'não há pressa pa' José'_?"

He repeats the sound of the words alright (at least as far as Donald can tell), but he still pronounces Joe's name with an aitch sound like always—or, well, no, not really an aitch sound exactly, technically it'd probably still be a jay sound, but, you know, not—aw, forget it, it's too confusing! Although really, Donald gets off easy not knowin' anything. He's pretty sure that sometimes when Joe gets going in Portuguese, Panchito winds up even more confused than he does.

The other way around too, probably, but Panchito mostly talks English when they're together. Which isn't necessarily to say he's better at it, or anything. Joe's English is all right; heck, in some ways it's probably better than Donald's. It ain't—it _isn't_ like Joe wouldn't know how to say all that stuff in English, if he wanted to.

But the way Joe talks—the way Joe talks English, anyway—or doesn't, as the case may be—well it's part of his style! Like all the crazy uses he finds for that umbrella, or like how he gets carried away with romantical songs about places he's never even been to, or like... like the way he can spin a dig into a compliment.

" _Muito obrigado_ ," he says to Panchito. Thank you: that's one of the ones Donald recognizes. "It's true, I have extraordinary skill in this regard! But after all, it is Christmas. Why be in a hurry?"

"Because," Donald hazards, "you're about to get ice cream on your jacket?"

And speaking of style, twisting his arm out of the way and applying his tongue to intercept the melting ice cream is about the quickest Joe's moved all week.

* * *

**Cierto pequeño rancho en algún lugar de los Altos de Jalisco, México - Navidad**

Christmas is sometimes the hottest day of the year—in Rio.

And not even the warmth of Donald snuggled up beside him is enough to let José forget about that. The mountain air is still giving him a headache, which he resents—he hasn't even had enough fun to deserve it!—and above the blankets it doesn't seem any warmer now than it did coming in last night in the chilling impenetrable darkness. Worst of all, it's scarcely dawn now and yet here he is _awake!_

José crams the pillow over his head to fend off the approaching day. Alas, this plan backfires.

"Hey Joe, you up?"

" _Não._ "

"It's Christmas!" Donald continues in the same bright, energetic tone. (This fellow oversleeps three hundred sixty-four days of the year; how is it that his biological clock [and running two hours behind, at that!] makes an exception for the twenty-fifth of December?) "Come on, let's go see what's for breakfast!"

He stands up, and José clings to his arm like a recalcitrant schoolboy holding fast to the blankets—with Donald in the role of blanket. "Nooooo," he moans. "It's too cold. I never want to move again."

Mercilessly overcoming this resistance, Donald somehow manages to pull José up into a sitting position. Then their outstretched hands catch in a moment of elastic tension, like on the dance floor, and he lets himself be spun back onto the bed, coming to rest with his head in José's lap. "Izzat so?" he asks languidly. "Never ever?"

For all Donald's own tendency to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation—perhaps, in fact, because of it—he has a real knack for humoring José in one of his melodramatic moods.

"Never, ever," José maintains. "People will say, ' _O que terá acontecido a pobre Zezinho?_ ' 'Haven't you heard? _É muito trágico_ , a very sad story. He froze to a bed in México and was never heard from since.'"

Donald laughs, and reaches up to ruffle the top of José's head. "Aw, _pobrecito_ ," he coos (this latest patronizing addition to his limited repertoire of non-English vocabulary courtesy of Panchito).

Speaking of whom...

"Didn't I tell you?" Donald answers, following his glance towards the other side of the bed. "He's making breakfast! 'No, don't get up,' he said. 'Didn't mean to wake you,' he said. Ha! As if you could wake _me_ up too early on Christmas!"

It's a valid point. That whispered colloquy could only have been out of consideration for the one caballero with any interest in staying asleep this morning. José feels a twinge of guilt at finding himself ungracious. He does not mean to be difficult; and really, he can scarcely blame Panchito for the climate. It’s Christmas Day. He must try harder to...

There's a shriek and a crash from the kitchen; and before Donald even has time to wonder aloud the bedroom door slams open and Panchito, in _sombrero_ and _sarape_ and an enormous hurry, skids into the room a blur of color.

" _¡Cuates! ¡Vengan a ver!_ "

Panchito seizes them both by the hand, and José's newly resolved good-will rapidly dissipates as they are tugged not only out of bed and out of the room, but down the hall and straight for the front door.

" _O que—_ " he begins to protest, and then there occurs to him a more apt expression for the situation. "What's the big idea?" he demands. "What's going on around...."

He trails off. Panchito comes to a sudden stop. They're standing on the front porch, looking out.

It's like one of Donald's Christmas picture-postcards in reverse. For the valley still lies in darkness, while the clouded-over morning sky is white as unbroken sand; so that at first the white motes show only against silhouetted scrub-brush. Then focus shifts to reveal innumerable specks falling from the sky almost imperceptibly slow.

It's curious, the way the snow adds definition to the clear air—no, to the very space itself. Just as one perceives the distance between two snowflakes at arm's length, one sees each of those little distances one after another as far as the eye can see, and it seems to José that for the first time he comprehends how _big_ is Panchito's valley. How big the sky is, for that matter.

Time, too, is curiously stretched; it seems minutes before Donald breaks the silence.

"Well I'll be doggoned! You never mentioned you got snow out here!"

"I... don't, usually," Panchito breathes.

And more beautiful, more magnificent than the scene before them is Panchito in this moment. 

The dark eyes are drawn raptly towards some point in the far distance, and a half-formed smile hovers around his mouth, like even his expression is standing still in awe. Only a moment ago this fellow was a living pistol-shot, and now all that energy has been... not subdued, so much as transformed, focused into a quiet strength and a profound appreciation for Nature's grandeur. Panchito is able to lose himself in this landscape the way José gets lost in a favorite song.

Now he turns to look back at José and the inchoate smile crystallizes, the reverent mood once more tempered with playfulness. "What?" he asks.

"Oh! _É...._ " Self-conscious, José breaks off his gaze—only to have it immediately caught by Donald, blue eyes shining with his own wonderful kind of bright uncomplicated glee.

" _É...._ "

It's very infrequent—most people would say, rather _too_ infrequent—that José Carioca is at a loss for words. But just being together with these two, in this place, in this moment... Words are inadequate. There's nothing to say, unless perhaps:

"F— _Feliz Navidad_ , boys."

" _Boa Natal_ , yourself," Donald counters—and, do you know, his pronunciation isn't half bad?

Panchito puts one arm around José and the other around Donald, pulls them in close. The wide sombrero and voluminous sarape are enough to shelter all three, and the warmth in the affectionate embrace is enough to rival any summer sun.

"Merry Christmas, caballeros."


End file.
